You will burn till your legs fall off and your knees are on the ground, and then you will be chopped small with knives.' Thank God, my courage and common sense were coming back to me.
'What happens to me to-morrow,' I said, 'is the Inkulu's business, not yours.

I am his prisoner.

But if you lift your hand on me to-day so as to draw one drop of blood the Inkulu will make short work of you.
The vow is upon you, and if you break it you know what happens.' And I repeated, in a fair imitation of the priest's voice, the terrible curse he had pronounced in the cave.
You should have seen the change in that cur's face.

I had guessed he was a coward, as he was most certainly a bully, and now I knew it.

He shivered, and drew his hand over his eyes.
'Nay, Baas,' he pleaded, 'it was but a joke.